Venture capital is still very much a boys' clubVenture capital is still very much a boys' club, according to a new Axios analysis. By the numbers: Only 9.65% of decision-makers at U.S. venture capital firms are women. The breakdown was 105 female decision-makers out of an industry total of 1,088. That's up from 8.93% in a similar analysis last year, and 7% in 2017. The 2016 mark was 5.7%. [ AXIOS ] Happy Valentine’s Day: your dating app account was hacked, says Coffee Meets BagelGood news for love-seekers this Valentine’s Day. In a bit of odd timing, users of the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel woke up this morning to find an email in their inboxes warning that their account information had been stolen by a third-party who gained unauthorized access to the company’s systems. [ Tech Crunch ] Australia's Canva Has Become A Unicorn By Bringing Online Design Tools To The MassesTo build a unicorn, Australian Melanie Perkins had a simple insight: make it easy for those with no design experience to create material that looks like it was done by a professional, anything from a business card to an e-book. In 2013, Perkins, with cofounders Cameron Adams and Cliff Obrecht, started website Canva, providing digital design tools and design resources. Since then, the website has grown into a platform with 15 million users in 190 countries. Based on this success, the trio last year raised $40 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital, which gave Canva a $1 billion valuation. [ Forbes ] The Seed SlumpI have written a bit about this topic in recent years, at the end of 2017, and again when the 2018 numbers started showing up. What has happened over the last five years in venture capital is the seed boom stalled out, the late stage market exploded, and the traditional venture capital business (Series A and Series B) largely remained the same except round sizes, valuations, and fund sizes have all gone up. Mark Suster posted a great analysis last night of why the seed stage market has stalled out. It comes down to the fact that the traditional venture capital market has not changed much so creating more supply has not resulted in materially more demand. [ AVC ] Tencent invests in Reddit as global battle with Bytedance escalatesChinese tech giant Tencent is rumored to have contributed $150 million to US social news and discussion platform Reddit’s $300 million Series D, leading to heated discussions over the possibility of future censorship on the platform. Although still unconfirmed, the news has sparked a backlash from Redditors who have expressed concerns that the site, which is famously known as a home for free speech and many niche communities, could face a purge after receiving
investment from Tencent. Users responded to the rumors by reposting content that would be censored in mainland China, including photos of Tank Man. [ CB Insights ] Investor Momentum Builds For Construction TechAlthough it’s not the sexiest of industries, the hefty construction sector in 2018 attracted not only the attention but, more importantly, the dollars of investors. Historically, the multi-trillion dollar sector has been slow to adopt new technologies, as builders rely on a variety of disparate systems to manage projects, traditional building methods to construct homes, and non-smart materials. [ Crunchbase ] Self-driving tractor-trailer start-up TuSimple achieves unicorn status in funding round that values it at $1 billionAutonomous trucking company TuSimple has achieved unicorn status on Wall Street with a fresh funding round that values the start-up at $1 billion. The company said Wednesday it raised $95 million in a series D funding led by Sina Corp. and Composite Capital, a Hong Kong-based investment firm, as it prepares to expand its testing of self-driving semis on highways in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. [ CNBC ] The Increasingly Crowded AI Unicorn ClubWe define AI companies as those that use machine learning as a core differentiator, sell AI software, or build AI chips. A few companies on the list, like Face++ and SenseTime, are selling AI software-as-a-service (SaaS). Both companies offer facial recognition technology to clients in government, retail, and other sectors. Others use ML in innovative ways to develop their core product. [ CB Insights ] Starling Bank, now with 460K consumer accounts, raises £75M more for European expansionStarling Bank, founded by banking veteran Anne Boden, has raised £75 million (~$97 million) in further funding. The new capital breaks down as £60 million in a Series C round led by Merian Global Investors, including Merian Chrysalis, with £15 million in follow-on funding from Starling’s existing backer and major shareholder Harald McPike. It brings total funding to date for the London-based challenger bank to £133 million. [ Tech Crunch ] It’s Valentine’s Day, But VCs Aren’t Falling In Love With Dating StartupsSome seventeen years ago, when Internet dating was popular but still kind of embarrassing to talk about, I interviewed an author who was particularly bullish on the practice. Millions of people, he said, have found gratifying relationships online. Were it not for the Internet, they would probably never have met. [ Crunchbase ] TechTO Exclusive: Scaling a Toronto startup with Silicon Valley venture capitalThis was first presented at the TechTO Exclusive event on February 7, 2019. In this presentation, our panelists, Nikolai Bratkovski (CEO & Co-Founder at Opencare.com), Kimmy Scotti (Partner at 8VC & CEO/Founder at Monthly Gift) and John Frankel (Founding Partner at ff Venture Capital) discuss the finer points of fundraising, scaling, managing a board, accessing Silicon Valley venture capital, and more. Silicon Valley Has Nowhere to GrowAfter a boom period of hiring the past seven years, Silicon Valley’s white-hot jobs market is cooling as the region nears full employment, housing costs reach dizzying heights, and major companies farm out jobs to less-costly places. [ Crunch base ] Why Has Seed Investing Declined? And What Does this Mean for the Future?Seed investments are down by any measure (funds, deals, dollars) over the past 3 years in deals < $1 million AND in deals between $1–5 million. What gives? Over the past month a colleague (Chang Xu) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses. We published our initial findings in our deep dive on the VC industry in which we showed that. [ Medium ] Kinnevik invests €86 million in Swedish online grocery store MatHem, upping its stake to 38%Swedish investment powerhouse Kinnevik has committed to invest 0.9 billion Swedish kroner (roughly €86 million) in online grocer MatHem to increase its stake to 38%. Kinnevik announced that it will invest about €38 million in primary capital into the business, and the rest through secondary share purchases, to up its ownership. [ Tech.eu ] China’s Didi reportedly lost a staggering $1.6 billion in 2018China’s largest car-hailing company is facing relentless pressure from all fronts. Beijing-based Didi Chuxing reportedly lost a staggering 10.9 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in 2018, according to financial data that Chinese news site 36Kr obtained. Catapult Ventures launches with $55 million seed fund for AI startupsArtificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Sure, there is still much hyperbole around certain applications of AI (and whether they truly can be called AI), but with smart speakers topping Christmas shopping lists and commercial driverless taxi services now in operation, AI is more science fact than ever. Why venture capital doesn’t work for everyoneWhen we talk about entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, the words “venture capital” are never far behind. But the reality, Indie.vc founder Bryce Roberts says, is that VC funding isn’t right for most entrepreneurs. “In the same regards that VCs want to fund billion-dollar, monopoly-style businesses, they have themselves a monopoly on the language we use about entrepreneurship, the archetypes they highlight as the ideals for entrepreneurship,” Roberts said on the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka. “And, as a result, we’ve looked at anything that diverges from that narrative as less ambitious, less worthy.” [ Re/Code ] Can Big Tech be fixed? Center for Democracy and Technology CEO Nuala O’Connor is “long-term optimistic.”On the latest episode of Recode Decode, Recode’s Kara Swisher spoke with Nuala O’Connor — the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology — about how the group is currently lobbying the government and tech companies. O’Connor said there’s a “holy war” going on among the tech companies that have unprecedented power in societies around the world. [ Re/Code ] VCs bet on robo-trucks as driverless logistics industry maturesUber may have discontinued its self-driving truck program, but far from slowing down, that sector of autonomous vehicle tech has continued to attract attention from investors, with TuSimple grabbing headlines this week as a newly minted unicorn. [ Pitchbook ] |